Homework

Recently, the L.A. Unified School District passed a requirement stipulating that a student's homework grade should consist of no more than 10% of the final grade. As a long proponent of limiting the amount of homework students are given, I applaud LAUSD for implementing such a courageous measure. Unfortunately, just last week LAUSD Supt. John Deasy suspended the new policy in order to have further public input, even though there were already discussions held for 18 months The earliest for any new homework policy to be in effect will be the 2012-13 school year. Don't you just love bureaucracies?

After a local PTA conducted a survey of parents, the results sparked district officials to move forward with guidelines that emphasize quality over quantity when it comes to students' homework - and state PTA officials are taking notice. After watching a screening of the film “Race to Nowhere,” about the pressure on today's students to achieve, parents involved with the John Burroughs High School PTA sent out a survey to fellow parents to learn how they felt about their child's homework.

Apropos the letters of protest by Drummond, Lawrence and Holbrook on the subject of burdensome homework, I will quote from an article on education in the L.A. Times on Jan. 28, 1997. The item carried the header "America Listens to E.D. Hirsh." "He has become a force by standing firm on two points he first made in 1987: that there is a core of knowledge every American must learn to succeed in school and function responsibly in our democracy; and that a wrongheaded educational theory called progressivism-teachers should be attuned to the social and emotional needs of children and should nurture their creativity-has kept schools from teaching that knowledge."

It is time for parents to start a populist uprising against homework. Not homework, per se, but the impact homework is having on healthy, well-adjusted kids, teens and families. Three to five hours a night plus weekends dominated by homework is creating stressed-out kids and frustrated parents. In the past week, a friend could not go on a family camping trip because of homework that needed to be completed using a computer; I witnessed a girl doing her homework while she was sitting with her family at a Saturday matinee performance at the Glendale Centre Theatre; and my 16-year-old daughter asked me to bring home an espresso drink so she could stay up late to finish her homework.

Gary Moskowitz The school district recommends sixth-graders do 20 to 30 minutes of homework daily, but 11-year-old Shannon Adelman is doing about three hours of homework every night after she leaves school at Monte Vista Elementary School. Her father, newly elected Crescenta Valley Town Council President Andrew Adelman, is giving her additional work because he doesn't feel the district's suggestion for allotted homework time is cutting it. "I don't think I need more, but it's good if it makes me smarter," Shannon said.

The Glendale News-Press visited Herbert Hoover High School and asked students being tutored after school : "How do you like the homework help program?" "It's good. It helps you. You actually learn and you actually get the work done too." MISAK ISRAELYAN, 16 Glendale "It's good because there's tutors around and they're your age so you can ask them questions." ALEX FAJARDO, 15 Glendale "The people are your age and they explain it to you in more detail because it's like one-on-one help."

Weight machines, basketball, “Dance Dance Revolution” and Wii — the combo may sound like a typical teenager’s pad, but this time, they’re what help make up the YMCA’s latest after-school program, Club Y. The focus of the program is to get children ages 8 to 14 involved in after-school activities that are safe, supervised, productive and fun, said YMCA Associate Program Director Saleh Saleh. “We’re getting them off the streets and trying to get them to the Y,” Saleh said.

HISTORY TEACHING GRANT ACCEPTED WHAT HAPPENED Supt. Michael Escalante recommended the Board of Education accept a $1-million grant to step up training for elementary and middle school teachers in American history. WHAT IT MEANS The U.S. Department of Education awarded the district $1 million to further train fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade students in American history through its Teaching American History Program. This is the second time the district received $1 million for more American history training for teachers.

Ease up on the homework and let them be kids We couldn't wait for the bell to ring and the school day to end. After school, all the kids in the neighborhood put on roller skates or played with balls and assorted toys. It was time for recreation. That's why we all waited for the bell to ring and school to end our long day. So homeward bound it was to do a little homework and then play. You have to work, play and rest; it's something I learned a long time ago. In the years my sons, one 12 and the other 16, have attended Glendale public schools, they have been given way too much homework.

Judy Seckler Family Art Night at Lincoln Elementary School Thursday night gave parents and children a chance to bond -- over Elmer's Glue and other art materials. The school set up a round robin of eight tables and eight different projects giving students of all grades and their parents an opportunity to rotate between the different tables. Whether students were doing vegetable stencil printing on T-shirts, stained-glass butterflies with crayon shavings and wax paper or tissue paper collages, they could move at their own pace and unleash their creativity.

After a local PTA conducted a survey of parents, the results sparked district officials to move forward with guidelines that emphasize quality over quantity when it comes to students' homework - and state PTA officials are taking notice. After watching a screening of the film “Race to Nowhere,” about the pressure on today's students to achieve, parents involved with the John Burroughs High School PTA sent out a survey to fellow parents to learn how they felt about their child's homework.

Long-time Burbank resident, Dorothy Roberts Benson, or as she was known later in her life to her granddaughter, family and friends, “Gaga”, passed away peacefully in her sleep at her home on Monday, January 14th. Born in 1933 in Elgin, North Dakota, Dorothy received her Bachelor's degree in Education from Dickenson State College in 1954. She continued her education at the University of Southern California from which she received her Master's Degree in Education in 1963. Dorothy had started her career as a second grade teacher in Hettinger, ND when she met the love of her life, Donald Benson.

Recently, the L.A. Unified School District passed a requirement stipulating that a student's homework grade should consist of no more than 10% of the final grade. As a long proponent of limiting the amount of homework students are given, I applaud LAUSD for implementing such a courageous measure. Unfortunately, just last week LAUSD Supt. John Deasy suspended the new policy in order to have further public input, even though there were already discussions held for 18 months The earliest for any new homework policy to be in effect will be the 2012-13 school year. Don't you just love bureaucracies?

Weight machines, basketball, “Dance Dance Revolution” and Wii — the combo may sound like a typical teenager’s pad, but this time, they’re what help make up the YMCA’s latest after-school program, Club Y. The focus of the program is to get children ages 8 to 14 involved in after-school activities that are safe, supervised, productive and fun, said YMCA Associate Program Director Saleh Saleh. “We’re getting them off the streets and trying to get them to the Y,” Saleh said.

Who among you has never cheated in school? Before you answer, perhaps it would be best to define our terms. Kids cheating is nothing new, and I’m pretty sure we’ve all done it or at least been sorely tempted. Copying someone’s homework, for instance, which the vast majority of us did at some point, is not cheating. It’s “borrowing” and often done with a fair assurance that the teacher who assigned the homework won’t read it anyway. If done on a regular basis, it is more a sign of laziness.

As an alumnus of the Armenian Youth Federation, I read with a sense of great consternation Dan Kimber’s woefully misplaced commentary piece, (“Greet melting pot with open arms,” Friday) which completely mischaracterizes the origins and purpose of the organization. If Kimber truly had an understanding of world history he would have grasped the meaning and significance behind the idea espoused by the organization, specifically that the “The Armenian Youth Federation was founded in Boston in 1933, by Gen. Karekin Njdeh, with the purpose of keeping the Armenian youth from assimilating,” and put these words in their proper context.

GLENDALE — There was a clear lesson from family literacy night at Toll Middle School on Wednesday, and it was visible on the face of a thinking eighth-grader. Principal Paula Nelson had asked 13-year-old Cree Andrews to analyze a theme from the popular novel “Twilight,” and upon hearing the question, Cree’s eyes’ turned in reflection toward the ceiling. “Look for signs in your own children,” Nelson told parents. “When you ask the right question, they’re like [this]

Crescenta Valley High School senior Matthew Hanzel is ready for college; he is taking the right classes, participates in extracurricular activities, and has long completed the recommended 100 hours of community service. Instead of luxuriating in the free afternoons that are typical of senior year, however, Hanzel dedicates two days out of the week to tutor at-risk children as part of the Salvation Army Glendale Corp’s Zone after-school program. “Once you start ... why stop?

La Crescenta Elementary sixth-graders faced their teachers in an energized game of softball on Thursday morning. Chants of ?Go, sixth graders? and ?Go, teachers, go? filled the ball field. The students gave it a good try but in the end the faculty won, 17 to 8. The ballgame was just part of the school?s end of the year celebrations. On June 5, the third grade classes got a behind-the-scenes tour of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the Bulldog Productions musical was held on June 10. Emily Kang, a sixth-grader, was the third place winner for the city of Glendale?